Ups and Downs in Lockdown

I didn’t feel it go, but at some point in a 50 yard stretch of descent from Edale Rocks my left calf began to hurt quite badly. It felt like I had cramp, but I knew almost immediately it was actually a pulled muscle or a calf strain as it would be described if I […]

Derwent Valley Heritage Way

4th & 5th December 2019: Ladybower Reservoir to Baslow – 13 miles I was up at 05:50, 10 mins before the alarm, and leapt out of bed before remembering I had a bad foot and a shit knee and so I hobbled down the stairs to the kitchen for a brew and a quick breakfast. […]

One Last Hurrah!

As you may have seen from a couple of previous posts, my plan for the last couple of months of the year was to walk the River Nidd Trail over a series of weekends with Chris. Unfortunately (for me, not Chris!), a new job opportunity arose and he is now working most of the weekends […]

Wildcamps of 2016

I’ve not posted anything for the last 6 months or so, if I’m honest, I’ve not really had much to talk about and what I have done I’ve not felt the urge to publish. So as we start 2017 I thought I’d rectify the situation and look back to the wildcamps I did in 2016. […]

May #MicroAdventure

We (@PilgrimChris and I) didn’t really manage an April MicroAdventure – we did a camp site overnighter and walked 22 miles through the Yorkshire Dales, but in many ways we didn’t really think it counted. I was expecting not to be able to manage one in May too, what with my Southern Upland Way plans […]

Kinder Winter White-out

I love walking in proper winter weather; not the usual winter weather we get in the UK – the drab, miserable, grey, wet and windy stuff that covers the country from October to March, but the rare Alpine winter days that are calm, clear and biting cold. We get so few of these each year […]

My Kinder Scout Project

A recent walk up to the famous Kinder Scout plateau in the Peak District got me thinking about all the other routes I’d used to reach this huge, peaty summit. I could think of at least five just off the top of my head and that got me wondering just how many established routes up […]

My Kinder Scout Project

I really enjoyed last week’s walk up Fair Brook and onto the Kinder plateau. Despite the mud (see walk summary here). It got me thinking about all the other routes I’d used to reach the huge, peaty summit of Kinder. I could think of at least five just off the top of my head and […]

Summertime

I finally realised someone was having a laugh at my expense when I heard a brass band playing ‘Summertime’ as I stepped off my fourth train of the morning, at Marsden station, in the pouring rain, with a ferocious wind whipping the leaves from the trees and causing me to shiver in my waterproofs. The […]

A Weekend Sacrifice

The Oxford Dictionary defines sacrifice as “An act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy”. It also includes an alternative definition of “an act of slaughtering an animal or person or surrendering a possession as an offering to a deity” ….but that’s not the one […]